State of The Internet Map Shows America’s Hot And Not So Hot Broadband Speeds Across The Country

The state with the fastest average broadband speed enjoys service that is nearly twice as fast as the state with the with slowest average high-speed connection. That's according to data contained in Akamai's "State of the Internet" report. Broadview Networks, an IT and cloud services provider, took that data and put together a rather neat map of the United States showing average Internet speeds by state.

States that appear green have the fastest average Internet speed, and the darker the green, the faster the speed. On the opposite end of the broadband spectrum, states that appear red have the slowest average connections, and the darker the red, the slower the service. Check it out:

Source: Broadview Networks via data from Akamai (click to enlarge)

As you can tell from a glance, Virginia boasts the fastest average broadband speed. According to Akamai, the average speed in Virginia is 13.7Mbps, which is almost twice as fast as Alaska at just 7Mbps, the slowest of all 50 dates. Surprised? One thing to consider is how close Virginia is situated to Washington DC (just a hop, skip, and jump away). It makes sense that government workers living in Virginia would create a demand for faster service.

Both Delaware and Massachusetts also boast comparatively fast service on average at 13.1Mbps for each, followed by Rhode Island (12.9Mbps) and Washington D.C. (12.8Mbps) rounding out the top 5 fastest locations.

States with slower speeds tend to be either less populated, have less money, or both. Many are concentrated in the southern portion of the U.S., such as Louisiana (7.7Mbps), Kentucky (7.3Mbps), and Arkansas (7.3Mbps).